Russia Now 9 Time Zones
^Russia's original 11 time zones
Over the weekend Russia decided they would cut two time zones. The worlds largest country by land mass now has 9 time zones instead of 11. Five of Russia's regions, two in European Russia and three in Siberia (Asia), are keeping their clocks the same and not turning them forward for daylight savings time. That results in their times being little closer to Moscow's time. This will help with communications and transportation.
Chukotka, Russia's eastern extreme, is now 9 hours ahead of Kaliningrad exclave, Russia's westernmost area. Before the change, there was a 10 hour difference between the two. The time zone that covered the Chukotka and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky regions has been eliminated. Two regions in central Russia, Samara and Udmurtia, should now be the same time as Moscow. The closest region to Moscow that experienced a time zone change was Samara. Samara will see sunset one hour earlier, which they are afraid will result in higher electricity bills and raise street crime. One activist who spoke to CNN by phone said, “In winter, school kids would be walking back home in darkness, while we adults would barely see any sunlight after we finish work.”
Time changes can create some bad circumstances as well as good. Energy officials in Russia say abolition of daylight savings time would create $85million in extra spending and increase Russia's energy consumption by 4.5billion kWatts/hour. Farm animals are used to being fed and milked at the same time, and suffer from the twice-a-year time changes. According to Scientist Sergei Kravchenko, within the first 5 days after a time change the number of ambulance calls about patients with blood hypertension and cardiac infarction increases by 11%. Kravchenko also said the number of suicide attempts in the first 5 days increases by 60%.
Government officials will take a close look at what effects the elimination of the two time zones has on the country. President Dmitry Medvedev wants experts to finalize studies on possible effects of abolishing the daylight savings time in Russia by February 2011. Russia has been using their current method of daylight savings time since 1981.
I like the idea of trying out the elimination of two time zones. When I read over the article the first time I was confused at how this would work. Don't you think some residents will forget and set their clocks ahead anyway? I was also shocked to learn that Russia has 11 times zones. I know I shouldn't have been, but putting it in the perspective that there are 24 hours in the day makes Russia's amount of time zones huge. I more-so expect the people of Russia to adjust to the elimination fairly easily. If you're traveling the country, it's easier to just keep driving and not have to reset your watch or the clock in your vehicle. While reading the articles and writing up my blog, little things run through my mind. One of those was how there won't be 11 different New Years in Russia anymore, only 9! Among the many new things I learned by doing my blog on this, I was surprised to read that ambulance calls for certain emergencies and suicide attempts increase. Although I used my friend Bing to figure out why suicide attempts rise under this circumstance, my search was unsuccessful. Until my question is answered, I'm going to use the excuse that some people are just horribly crabby about losing an hour of sleep. I'm interested to see where this elimination of time zones goes in the years to come.
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Comments
Very well done!!